Page 77 of Play of Shadows
She paused a moment, then finally answered, ‘The Black Amaranth.’
Beretto whistled through his teeth. ‘Rhyleis is right: surely the duke must have ordered Lady Shariza to find and kill the Orchids’ leader– and if she really is one of the last living Dashini assassins, the fact that she’s failed can only mean the enemy is even more devious than we guessed.’
‘Which I could believe,’ Rhyleis continued, ‘were the Orchids themselves not such utter fucking morons.’ She pointed to the alley below. ‘Look at them, running rampant through the streets, following orders they barely understand, issued by no one they could ever name.’
That sparked a thought. ‘Vadris– the drug-pedlar who works the alley outside the Belleza?– Grey Mags challenged him on who recruited him to the Orchids, and though he tried to hide it, you’d swear he had no idea.’
Beretto chuckled deep in his chest.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘Wouldn’t it just be perfect if it turned out the militant thugs and corrupt nobles of this city were all caught up in a game of “drunken whispers”? Passing messages and launching intrigues and never noticing that not a one of them had ever met their own leader?’
‘The damage they do is real enough,’ I pointed out. ‘If this doesn’t st—’
The clang of steel against stone put a stop to my ruminations. We heard the rattle of a something– a buckler, maybe– rolling down the cobblestones, followed by swearing as its owner, presumably, chased it down the alley. His comrades were laughing at his misfortune, hurling jibes after him.
We leaned cautiously over the edge.
‘More Orchids?’ Beretto whispered.
I nodded, my jaw aching from the way my teeth were grinding together from biting back Corbier’s desire to scream at these men, to face them, sword against sword, but the bravos passed us by, never thinking to look up.
‘Perhaps we ought to consult Corbier? He might know who planted these foul orchids in our garden.’ He reached out and started tapping me on the forehead. ‘Hello? Your Grace? Might you come out to sing for us a while? We’ve got a few questions.’
I batted his fingers out of the way. ‘It doesn’t work that way. It’s. . .’ My tongue twisted, searching for words to describe sensations I could barely understand and couldn’t control at all. ‘I don’t think Corbier is a ghost or spirit haunting me. He’s more like. . . like a box of half-remembered memories. Bad ones, mostly. When the box opens, I fall inside and every thought I reach for turns out to be another of Corbier’s recollections. He doesn’t take me over, not like that. It’s more like part of my own mind fills with those memories and. . . recreates whoever Corbier was at the time when our last performance ended.’
‘So when Rhyleis sang the congretto. . .’
‘I heard the same words you did, the same notes, but sung by someone else. Corbier remembered it as an annoying ditty this idiot minstrel in poncey clothes sang at some margrave’s ball. But that’s all it was, a passing annoyance– no buried secrets, no grand revelations, just a bad taste in my mouth.’
Beretto patted my shoulder. ‘That’s one shitty magical talent you have there, brother.’
Rhyleis bridled at our casual dismissal of what she no doubt saw as a magnificent Bardatti ability. ‘The Veristor’s gift is to uncover buried truth. It’s not some parlour trick to make it easier for the two of you to get laid by whichever half-witted nobles jangle their—’
‘Wait,’ I said, cutting her off. ‘You said congrettos are rebellion songs, right? Composed to rally the peasantry in revolt? So why would a margrave allow one to be performed in his home?’
Rhyleis stopped scowling at me long enough to reply, ‘He wouldn’t. Not even in jest.’
‘Could you sing it again?’
The complex arrangement of melody and words rolled smoothly off her tongue.
‘No crown, no sceptre, howe’re brightly they shine,
Gainsay our rights, as holy as thine—’
‘There,’ I said, stopping her, ‘the “rights” the song talks about– could they be referring to those belonging to thenobility, not the lower classes?’
‘I suppose. That would certainly make the line “as holy as thine” less blasphemous,’ she conceded.
‘Keep going,’ I urged her.
‘Thy pertine is comely, o’er the garden it looms,
But look all around you, at sturdier blooms—’
Rhyleis halted of her own accord this time. ‘Traditionally that term– “sturdier blooms”– was used as a metaphor for the working classes, who like to think of themselves as hardier than the pampered nobility. But it’s out of place, given the next stanza:
